City of Los Angeles Releases Alexa Skill
Another sign of Alexa’s growing footprint, The City of Los Angeles has released an Alexa Skill. They plan to build software for Cortana, Google and Siri at a later date.

Online marketplace for house cleaning
– Connect cleaners with homes
– Start with one local market, try to line up cleaners to get it started
– Or be prepared to do the cleaning yourself, to get started
– Charge a standard hourly rate, business gets %
– Easy job that anyone can do
– “Maids” get their profiles built up over time
– You are selling trust, same as AirBnB

Problems to think about
– Insurance / background checks required?
– How to keep people from going around the platform?

Google HomeGoogle Home Runs Ad for Beauty and the Beast
As discussed in our State of Alexa report, Google’s existing revenue model is based on selling advertising. This week they started playing ads when Google Home users requested their daily “My Day” update.

Amazon AlexaAmazon Giving $100 / Month AWS Credits to Alexa Developers
To help promote the creation of Alexa Skills, Amazon is giving developers $100 of AWS credits per month – in addition to the standard 1 million free Lambda calls and other Free Tier services. 10,000 skills and counting…

Alexa is Now in Amazon’s iPhone App
Users can now access Alexa through Amazon’s main iPhone app. This is the first time Amazon has given users a way to speak to Alexa through an iPhone.

Lots of existing (free) competition but could carve out a specific niche:
– solo owners of multiple houses
– mid-sized properties (30ish units) where there is a property manager who is not the owner
– huge companies with hundred+ units
– target low or high income renters / properties
– landlords who will pay a small fee for better service